For Want of a Single Heart

At night, when the aquarium is empty, the Giant Pacific Octopus is lonely. There are no people to look for her, no faces to marvel at her. In her loneliness, she makes a wish; to be human, so that she can be among them, even just once.

Something listens; one night, her wish comes true.

Bony limbs unspool, naked eyes squeeze shut against salt’s sting. Jointed fingers fumble at the lock that pliable tentacles would solve easily, until she emerges into the oxygen atmosphere, new lungs heaving. She stands on two wobbling legs, adjusting to this new gravity.

She greets the world in clothes swiped from the gift shop; clashing, bright, oversized. Into the city lights she wanders, where humans gather, where she is nothing to marvel at. It is a joyous experience, this new camouflage.

Outside of a nightclub, lights spill onto the pavement. Music pounds in her singular heart. She moves, compelled, as the music wraps itself around her brain. She dances, gangly limbs flailing wildly. Other humans, drawn by infectious exhilaration, join her. Strangers dance together, laughing, drunk on the joy of living.

Hours later she returns to the aquarium, with warm-blood-flushed cheeks and sweat staining her clothes. The morning sun paints the sky pink, and so paints her back into an octopus. Tentacles open her tank with ease, and she slips contently into her water.

When the people gather to watch her this morning, she dances for them, music thumping in all three of her hearts.

Andrew Loria is an author who dabbles in everything, but prefers the extraterrestrial, the romantic, the horrific, and the absurd.